Cannes, Hong Kong, South Korea and Hungarian films: here’s the list of the films in the Open Eye program!
From 1 to 9 September, the CineFest Miskolc International Film Festival’s Open Eye program will present two Hungarian masterpieces, the opening film from Cannes – which is also the opening film of the CineFest – and the Palme d’Or winner. Also in this program, the Hong Kong International Film Festival will present six outstanding films from Hong Kong and three South Korean films will help you immerse yourself in the best of contemporary Asian cinema.
The opening film of CineFest is coming to Miskolc straight from the 2023 Cannes Film Festival: Jeann Du Barry is also Johnny Depp’s big comeback and his first European film in a long time. Jeanne Vaubernier, a working-class woman (played by Maïwenn, the film’s director), is determined to climb the social ladder and use her charms to break out of her miserable situation. Her lover, the Count du Barry, who has become rich thanks to Jeanne’s amorous intrigues, wishes to introduce her to the King and arranges the meeting through the influential Duke Richelieu. The meeting exceeds his expectations: scandalous love at first sight between Louis XV (Depp) and Jeanne.
Winner of the Palme d’Or at Cannes, the world’s most prestigious film festival, Anatomy of a Fall is the closing film of CineFest. In this psychological thriller, Sandra’s (Sandra Hüller – Toni Erdmann) seemingly idyllic life collapses like a house of cards. The successful German writer lives with her French husband and their visually impaired child in a small village in the French Alps. After the sudden death of her husband, it is unclear whether the death was an accident, suicide or murder. Sandra is therefore at the center of an extremely stressful investigation and trial. In a film that follows the Hitchcockian tradition, the events are seen from the wife’s point of view, while the viewer is left to question her innocence. The Anatomy of a Fall is much more than a crime story, however: director Justine Triet is primarily interested in marriage and, more fundamentally, in the deepest layers of human relationships.
Gábor Reisz’s first feature film, For Some Inexplicable Reason, was a huge hit with audiences at CineFest and won the festival’s grand prize, the Adolf Zukor Award. It is therefore very exciting news that Hungarian audiences will be the first to see his latest film, Explanation for Everything, here. The film stars high school student Ábel. He is supposed to be preparing for his final exams, but he has just realized that he is in love with his best friend, Janka. She is also hopelessly in love, but with their history teacher, Jakab. The boy’s history exam is turning into a national scandal, with disagreements dividing his whole community and even the country. The Explanation for Everything will have its world premiere at the Venice International Film Festival, running in parallel with CineFest.
Gábor Einspach is a successful gallery owner and contemporary art collector, and one of the leading figures in the Budapest art world. When he learns that he is suffering from pancreatic cancer, he sees the disease not as a tragedy but as an opportunity for a complete new beginning. As he continues to undergo increasingly physically demanding treatments, he tries to redefine his life, his true goals and his relationship with his entire environment. Asia Dér, co-director of the highly successful Story of My Mothers, follows Gábor’s daily life from the very beginning of his treatment in I Won’t Die, which will have its world premiere at an A-category festival shortly after CineFest. Dér delves deep into the mental and physical struggles of an extraordinary man and asks whether Gábor can achieve his goals. Producers Noémi Veronika Szakonyi and Máté Vincze Artur received the Adolf Zukor Award last year for their film Six Weeks, and will return to the festival with I Won’t Die!
In partnership with the Hong Kong International Film Festival, CineFest presents six outstanding Hong Kong films as part of this year’s Opern Eye selection. In Mad Fate, a fortune teller tries to help a prostitute on a rainy night, but the man arrives a few minutes late and is forced to watch her die. Coincidence also brings Siu Tung, who stares at the corpse, mesmerized. When the fortune teller sees the future and realizes that Siu Tung is about to commit murder, he decides to confront the inevitable. In the Sunny Side of the Street features a local taxi driver assisting a young boy on the run to escape Hong Kong. A father-son relationship develops between them until the boy discovers that the taxi driver is actually his real father’s killer. In Over My Dead Body, the owners of an apartment complex find a dead body one night, setting the stage for all hell to break loose. A Light Never Goes Out is the heartbreaking story of a middle-aged widow who wants to fulfil her husband’s last wish by recreating a legendary neon sign that has been demolished. In Guilty Conscience, a lawyer tries to free his long-imprisoned client to make amends for his own earlier professional mistake. In the film, In Broad Daylight, a news agency receives a tip-off about abuse of residents at a home for the disabled. To expose the home’s illegalities, an investigative reporter goes undercover.
This year, the South Korean focus of the Open Eye program includes three films that have been highly acclaimed in their home country. The films are presented by the Korean Cultural Center in celebration of the 40th anniversary of the Korean Academy of Film Arts (KAFA). In the 2003 science fiction film Save the Green Planet, aliens plan to invade the Earth and are already here disguised as politicians and businessmen. At least, according to a young man who, as the world’s self-appointed saviour, goes into action: he kidnaps the leaders to get them to confess. The story of the documentary Sound of Nomad: Korjo Arirang, dates back to 1937, when Stalin deported nearly 200,000 Koreans from the Russian Far East to Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. Among them was the troupe of the Koryo Theatre in Vladivostok, who decided to save and preserve their culture in their new homeland. Christmas in August is the heartbreaking story of a photographer in his thirties who meets a charming young woman. When he learns that he’s terminally ill, he closes his business and leaves her life without a trace to spare her the pain of grief.
